The Colorado Renewable Energy Collaboratory – a partnership between industry and the state’s top research institutions – has generated $37 million in federal and private research funds since 2007, according to a report to the legislature.

Created under a law, signed by former Republican Gov. Bill Owens, the goal was to draw together researchers from Colorado’s top research institutions, add a little state seed money and strike partnerships with industry on renewable energy projects.

“The aim was to connect resources, capital and research,” said David Hiller, executive director of the collaboratory.

As sketched in the Colorado Renewable Energy Administration’s 2012 report to the legislature, the collaboratory has a string of success including funding 66 research projects.

And the organization has stretched its initial three-year, $6-million appropriation to cover five years.

Still, the report says that renewable energy research was hurt by the 2008 recession and that despite the success in raising outside funds the organization “may need to seek another round of state funding.”

The money has created researcher centers focused on biofuels, solar energy, and wind power that brought together the University of Colorado-Boulder, Colorado State University, the Colorado School of Mines and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden.

Those centers, in turn, attracted big name companies to the program including Chevron and ConocoPhillips in the biofuels program, Total in solar and RES Americas and Vestas in wind.

The centers do research that is shared among its members and specific contracted research for individual companies.

The tally on research funding is:

• Private members contributed $4.18 million for shared research
• Private members paid $5.27 million for specific research
• The collaboratory obtained a total of $28 million in federal research funds.

By the time the 2008 recession hit, however, the initial state seed money was just about used up. The administration of former Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter helped the organization get $2 million from a federal “state stabilization” fund in 2010.

Industry support also fell off. For example, the number of companies participating in the biofuels center went to 14 in 2011 from 27 in 2008.

The collaboratory is continuing to search for alternative funding and is trimming the support for each research group, according to Hiller.

Emilie Rusch covers retail and commercial real estate for The Post. A Wisconsin native and Mizzou graduate, she moved to Colorado in 2012. Before that, she worked at a small daily newspaper in South Dakota. It's the one with Mount Rushmore.